Five's Story
by Tactum Ignis
Summary: Five's story after the death of Setrakus Ra. Not AU.


I flew down into the base with the other garde, aiming to kill my former master. A thought crosses my mind as I glance at John, and even Nine as we're racing towards the final battle: this is how it was supposed to be. Fighting alongside my Loric brothers and sisters. I shut off that thought and focus downward. They would laugh at me, and the time has far passed for them forgiving me. We land next to a pool of black sludge amid the debris.

Setrakus Ra stands up out of the sludge, black liquid dripping off him. I gasp. He looks healthy and complete, and even as I watch, the purple scar around his neck fades, replaced by healthy white skin.

He smiles vainly at us. John and I, covered in steel, fly at him from opposite sides. His right arm rotates back towards me like a plastic barbie and he grabs me by the throat. He grabs John by the throat with his left arm and throws him far away. John lands on his back.

And then Setrakus Ra looks down at me. (dialogue)

He tears divots in my steel face with razor sharp claws that emerge from his fingertips. I scream terribly. And then he dunks me into the pool of black sludge. I struggle and let go of my steel form unconsciously. My skin turns oily, black, and still Setrakus Ra holds me under the surface. I feel electric sparks pulled out of my skin from deep within me. The sludge enters my body with a burning sensation.

Setrakus lets go and I sink to the bottom, my mind fading.

I wake up alone in a puddle of the black sludge, in the dark. There are rocks piled all around me, but I can hear voices from above. I look around and see a sliver of light. I use my telekinesis to push apart the rocks until it's wide enough for me to get through.

I fly away, shakily at first, but steadier. I know instinctively where I'm heading. I slow down as I land, head hanging low. My skin has black veins running all through it, I can see now in the light.

There are hogs peering at me from the treeline. I guess they managed to flourish here. I trudge further inland until I come to the place the hut used to be. Two of the walls have collapsed inward, the roof has fallen, and there is a tree growing there that's already taller than me.

With sudden force, I rip the tree out of the ground with my mind, roots and all. I hold it in the air and rip branches off savagely, throwing them as far as I can into the water. As if I'm protesting the inevitability of nature. When there are no more branches, I heave the whole trunk, arms shaking under the weight carried by my mind. I only manage to get throw it twenty feet.

I'm weak.

The next place I visit is Rey's grave. It takes me almost twenty minutes to walk there. I'm in a daze, the sky is blue, and my legs feel like rubber. I stand there for a minute, looking down. There is a bright blue flower growing in the patch of earth above his body. I stare at it and slowly slump down until I'm on my knees.

I will for tears but none come. I can only imagine what Rey would say if he could see me now, scarred black, a murderer of my own kind. Oh, how I have changed. It's so easy to hate myself for the slippery slope I fell down, but I can't. Because I still understand how it felt back then. I lived it.

The war, the whole focus of my life, is over, and there's nobody to go back to for me. I have nobody. Anybody who knew me is dead or hates me. More than that, I'm technically a fugitive from the US government now. The future is dark, uncertain. I feel like my continued existence is pointless.

My eyes close and I fall into sleep.

It's dark again when I wake up. I start, visions of the black sludge flashing in front of me. But it's just the night sky, and in turn I startle a baby hog that's settled a few feet from me. He squeals and darts away.

I struggle to my feet and start shambling towards a part of the forest I remember is clearer. Without thinking, I start pulling sticks along, floating beside me. Pretty soon I've got a good number. It takes more effort than I remember.

When I reach the clearing, I gently set the pile of sticks down. They roll a little ways and then stop. I pick them up one by one and stick them into the ground in a box shape with an opening, creating the start of a hut. I'm not sure why I'm doing it at first, but it slowly comes to me in the following months that this island is my home, more than a pipe dream in Canada.

I glance around me as I'm making the walls and I see the baby hog looking at me. I turn back and ignore him, but I hear his trotting behind me when I walk across the island.

I crack open a few coconuts and drink the sweet water inside as I take a break. The hog trots towards me hesitantly. I offer him half of a broken coconut and he wrinkles his snout and turns away. I see a couple of mature hogs pulling up wild potatoes and eating them. "Well, alright then," I say, my voice rusty.

I name the hog Rey. I make a collar out of a vine and put it on him.

It takes me a couple days to finish the hut. I coat the walls with mud from the bottom up to make the walls solid. I build a small chimney out the back with a fireplace inside.

The metal barrels we used to collect rainwater are still there, unbroken, albeit knocked over and full of pig shit, dirt, and leaves. I drag them to the ocean and wash all the stuff out, then fill them with water and boil them over a fire to kill germs. I set them inside my hut and bring them out when I see clouds coming over the ocean. It rains every couple weeks.

I salvage what I can from the old hut. The old pile of blankets that served as my bed. The big pot and two bowls we ate out of. Two cups. Rey's solar powered lantern. After a couple minutes of consideration, I lift Rey's whole desk and take it to my hut. Rey Jr follows me.

I have a big farm of the wild potatoes and some other plants on a part of the island the hogs don't go to. I keep a stockpile of the vegetables and coconuts in one of the metal barrels. I build a pen and keep some hogs in it.

The black veins don't fade. In the first couple months, I wanted it to be healed, but I had a realization. It is my punishment. The weakness that it causes is my eternal penance for murdering Eight, and I accept it.

I settle into a routine. I wake up each morning with the sun, rinse my mouth, eat , feed the hogs in my pen, and then fill the pot with water from the ocean and water my plants. When all the plants are watered, I pull up any ripe ones and plant seeds in their place. I wash the vegetables off in the ocean and then put them in the metal barrel in my hut dedicated to food.

Then I jog around the whole island a couple times. Rey Jr, now almost grown, usually comes out of the forest and runs with me. I feed him a couple acorns. He loves them, I've found.

I visit Rey's grave every day after my jog. I keep weeds out of his grave. Sometimes I talk to him about my life, what I'm thinking, but usually I just sit against a nearby tree, stretch my legs out, take a short nap. Rey Jr lays against me and sleeps. I pet him. My arm lays across him when I nap.

The sow in my pen has a litter of piglets. I let them go free on the island after weaning.

Every couple weeks, I take a potful of vegetables to a marketplace in Martinique. They pretend not to notice my disfigured skin. I'm grateful for that. The first time I came, I flew, and the first thing I traded for was a rowboat. I use that now. The second thing I traded for was a map, and I marked my tiny home on it as near as I could.

I take up drawing, reading, and fishing in my spare time. I have a lot of spare time on my island. I have a few sketchbooks, a couple dozen fictional books and a few nonfiction about plants. I doodle in my sketchbooks, the way I would in the sand when I was supposed to be training. I bought a fishing rod myself after selling some of my vegetables. Fishing takes a lot of patience. Fortunately, that's something I've developed on the island. I toss back small fish and I cook big ones over my fireplace for dinner. It's a treat.

I haven't used my legacies for almost six months. I idly wonder if I even still can.

This type of lifestyle is definitely not what I imagined for myself, but it's fulfilling.

Almost a year passes on my island before a visitor comes. Marina, Number Seven, floating in a small boat. I first notice her while I'm fishing. She just stares at me, never getting close. I wonder how I must look. It's not a good sight.

I wonder if I would try to stop her if she came on shore to kill me. If I even could. I don't have to answer that because she doesn't. Most days she is there, some days she is not. A month passes before any difference. That difference is him. Number Four, John Smith. He's with Marina in her boat that day.

They talk, and I hear the last things they say. "What about him?" Marina says. John responds, "He's a ghost. We're not."

I stand silently, unmoving, long after they're gone. I know that this is the last time I will meet the other garde. John Smith's words are ironic: I've never felt more like my life was worth living than now. I came here with nothing, and everything I have now, I bought or made. I'm more proud of myself than I've ever been. I finally understand. My life is what I make of it, and that's what I've had the freedom to do since Setrakus Ra's death.

The line jumps. I whip it in and hold the fish. It's too small. I carefully take it off the hook and let it swim away. I cast again.


End file.
